Knox Presbyterian Church

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There is conflict in the early church between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Both sides have a different understanding about what it means and what is required of them to belong to God, as they learn to follow Jesus. Most Jews believe strongly that circumcision should still be a requirement— it is the sign of their covenant with God — given in the beginning to the father of faith Abraham. Most Gentiles believe it is no longer necessary. This conflict is causing both sides to be less than generous with one another. The leaders get together to see if they can resolve this fundamental difference.

Galatians 2:9-10 — “James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.”

Recognizing Grace Football practices at both the University of Washington and Washington State University were delayed for nearly two hours late last week, after players at both universities reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field that they didn’t recognize.

Head coaches Tyrone Willingham and Paul Wulff immediately suspended practice while police and federal agents were called in to investigate. After a complete analysis, FBI forensic experts determined that the white substance unknown to the players was the goal line. Practices were resumed after special agents decided the teams were unlikely to encounter, the substance again.

I wanted to get you ready for Apple Cup Week! (Ad Lib) There is one thing I want you to grab on to from our laughter around the shared misery of our state’s college football teams this year.

• Our state’s two college football teams didn’t recognize the goal line.

There is one thing that I want you to grab onto from our scripture passage.
• The early church leaders recognized grace and what a difference it made in their ability to score touchdowns!
In all seriousness, I believe there is fundamental spiritual principle in play here.

• The more we recognize grace, the more we live into what it means and what is required of us to belong to God, as we learn to follow Jesus.

• The less we recognize grace, the less we understand what it means and what is required of us to belong to God as we learn to follow Jesus.

The Jewish leaders recognized the grace that was given to Paul. As a result three things happened.

• They gave Paul the gift of fellowship
• They gave each other the gift of freedom.
• In these gifts of fellowship and freedom they discover what they have in common.

I may have told this story already – if I have forgive me – but I think about it every Veterans Day. I called my father once while I was doing a radio talk show. I knew it was the only way that I might get an answer to my question. “Dad,” I said, “It’s your son Paul calling, you’re live on the radio, but I’d like to ask you a question about your war experience.

“You’ve got two minutes,” is what he said. So I asked him, “What did war do to you? “Well,” he said “it made me softer, and it made me harder. Softer because I made be more deeply compassionate for the common suffering of humanity, and harder because I saw what humanity, and what I, was capable of.”

I had the honor of hearing a World War II Veteran share one of his war stories this week. He was a leader of a unit that had lost two-thirds of his men. He felt responsible for those losses.
Now near the end of the war, their mission was to walk through the streets of small deserted German towns, for anyone left behind. Suddenly this leader felt danger, he could tell something incredibly wrong. Suddenly there was gunfire coming at these young men. The leader yelled to what was left of his unit, “it’s coming from over there, open fire.”
Eventually it was silent. The leader of the unit went up the stairs of the building where the gunfire had come from. What he found broke his heart. A 12 year old German boy with an old sawed off shot gun lying on the ground, he had been left behind to defend his family’s home. The man fell to the ground weeping. When he didn’t come out those in his unit began to get worried. They found him on the ground. He was still weeping. Time slowed down as the other young men joined him, offering what they could, with words like – “It wasn’t your fault.” “You didn’t know.”

Can you hear the grace in those words? Do you recognize the grace of fellow soldiers on the ground, weeping together in this veteran’s story?

It is the same grace that is present in all of our human stories, grace that is recognized in our gospel story.

Remember what Paul was doing before he had the experience of meeting Jesus in that blinding vision of light and utter darkness? He was rounding up those Jews who believed in Jesus to be killed. Is possible that James, Peter, John may have even known some of those Jewish brothers and sisters that Paul had rounded up to be executed?

Yet here is Paul. He was the one who had been an enemy of the Jews who followed Jesus. Here is Paul who wants lead a church full of Gentiles – the ones were known as unclean and enemy of all Jews.

And here are the leaders of the early church offering the gift of fellowship, in the midst of the pain of all of the memories. This gift of fellowship is based forgiveness and acceptance, because each of them had received the gift of being accepted by God, in spite of their human limitations.

They recognize that each of them belongs to God, for Christ’s spirit is present in them, spite of themselves, in spite of what they think they know and what they don’t yet know. They recognize they are part of something beyond themselves, beyond the divisions Jew and Gentile.

This gift of fellowship allows them to give each other the gift of freedom to recognize grace and to receive and follow it.

I met with a gal this week that recently lost her husband. She was telling me about her life. She and her husband had been talking about her giving up her job last summer – the one that was half-time but had great benefits – meaning a health plan and vacation time. The two of them had prayed about this and felt strongly that she was supposed to stay in her job. Now this woman says to me with a sense of wonder in her voice, “I am being paid, and I don’t have to go back to this job until March or April. Other employees here, and around the state, are donating vacation days to me, so that I can stay home and take care of my children,”

Then she told me about her father. He had left her as child. He’d been married three times. Now he is living with her. He watches now bathing her children. She recognizes that in the presence of death, life is emerging. Old wounds are being healed, when she hears one of her children say, “Grandpa, you are part of our family now, can I call you papa?” Her father answer is freeing in ways that she can’t even imagine yet. “No honey, I’m not you daddy, but I am here for you and I will be here for you.”

Can you hear the grace in these words from a child and a grandfather in the midst of all of the light and darkness? Do you recognize the grace that is present in them, that is being received as a gift by this woman who is grieving?

Again I believe it is the same grace that is present in all of our human stories, grace that is recognized in our gospel story.

Leaders of the early church – Jew and Gentile – receive this gift of recognizing that all belong to God. With this recognition comes a certain knowing that God is healing all of their divisions. With this knowing a tremendous sense of freedom comes.

Freedom that leads them to discover what they have in common – what it means to follow Jesus and what is required of them. Each side agrees to move together, but apart, in common mission. James, Peter, and John will share the love of God and the grace of Jesus with Jews.
Paul and Barnabas will do the same with the Gentiles. “They only asked one thing of me,” Paul writes, “to remember the poor.”

There’s a church I know that has been struggling with budget issues. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I’d like to tell you a story about grace in this church – that deals specifically with money.

You see leaders in the church pledged $2,000 dollars a year or so a year ago, in hopes that they could do an affordable housing feasibility study. They believed that God was up to something in this church and neighborhood around this idea of “remembering the poor” – through action on their behalf.

Christ Kitchen a ministry to woman who previously unemployed had moved near into their neighborhood. Christ Clinic would come next. Just last Sunday more than 250-people walked through a brand new 4,800 square foot health care clinic, near the church. This new clinic will serve nearly 4,000 uninsured patients. According to news reports that number will likely triple in the next ten years – to 12,000 patients, will be coming into our neighborhood, near our church!

Church leaders who made this pledge of $2000 for an affordable housing feasibility study did so because they believed God was asking them to consider what kind of church they wanted to be, based on where they were located, in a city that has an affordable housing crisis. They didn’t know where the $2000 would come from – let alone the $15,000 that it would cost to go through phase I of the feasibility study. But they saw God working. The consultant they made an agreement with was willing to Phase I of the feasibility study for $10,000 because he believed as a Presbyterian he believed in the possibility of the project. An architecture firm donated their time to do drawings for the project. Deacons in the church graciously offered to give $2000 from memorial fund gifts that had come to them over the years.
• $5,000 came from an anonymous gifter.
• $1,500 from Hamblen Park Presbyterian Church.
• $1,000 from First Presbyterian Church.
• $2,000 from Presbytery of the Inland Northwest.
• Nearly a $1,000 from some of you in our congregation.
• Another $2,000 from Presbytery for 2009.
Wow, it looks like the church is making money on this deal!

Seriously though do you hear the grace in these words “struggling with budget issues” and “not quite sure where it was going to come from?” Do you recognize the grace that is present in these gifts the church has received?

It is the same grace that is present in all of our human stories, grace that is recognized in our gospel story.

Where do to you recognize God’s grace? What is the result of that recognition?

If you’re not sure, I encourage you consider saying yes again to God’s forgiveness and acceptance in Jesus Christ. I encourage you to say yes again and then live in generous fellowship and freedom that comes from knowing that you belong to God, to something beyond yourself.

Remember the poor. Remember the spirit of Jesus lives in human flesh. God forgives you for being human. Recognize grace and receive God’s healing in all that is dying and living.

I’d like to close by asking you have a conversation with the person or persons sitting next you, and discuss the following questions.

1. When was the last time you recognized grace?
2. How did it make a difference in your life, or in the lives of those around you?
3. Are you more of a grace receiver or more of a grace giver?
4. How is God encouraging you to respond to this message of recognizing grace?

I will lead us in closing prayer in a moment or two.

Please pray with me. (Don’t forget the pledges)